National Velvet are a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

goth rock Gothic rock (also called goth rock or simply goth) is a style of rock music that emerged from post-punk in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s. The first post-punk bands which shifted toward dark music with gothic overtones include Siouxsie an ...

band, popular in the 1980s and 1990s."Ottawa holds out banana for National Velvet". ''

Montreal Gazette The ''Montreal Gazette'', formerly titled ''The Gazette'', is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Three other daily English-language newspapers shuttered at various times during the second half of th ...

'', April 16, 1995. They took their name from the 1944 movie starring Elizabeth Taylor. The band members have included vocalist Maria Del Mar, guitarist Mark Crossley, guitarist Mich Gzowski, drummer Ken Sinclair, guitarist Tim Welch, bassist Mark Storm (born Mark Erickson), saxophonist Chris Reis and drummer Garry Flint.National Velvet
at ''

Jam! Jam! was a Canadian website which covers entertainment news. It was part of the Canoe.com online portal, formerly owned and operated by Quebecor through its Sun Media division, and now owned by Postmedia Network. Jam! was the only media outlet ...

'' Music - Pop Encyclopedia. The band came together after a chance meeting between Del Mar and Storm in an alley during a party in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

; that initial meeting was actually an argument about musical taste, because Storm was a fan of gothic rock bands such as

Bauhaus The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the Bauhaus (), was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., 200 ...

, while Del Mar was into Spanish classical music,

Motown Motown Records is an American record label owned by the Universal Music Group. It was founded by Berry Gordy Jr. as Tamla Records on June 7, 1958, and incorporated as Motown Record Corporation on April 14, 1960. Its name, a portmanteau of ''moto ...

swing music Swing music is a style of jazz that developed in the United States during the late 1920s and early 1930s. It became nationally popular from the mid-1930s. The name derived from its emphasis on the off-beat, or nominally weaker beat. Swing bands ...

and punk rock. Mark introduced Maria to some friends that were looking to start a band. Maria Del Mar worked the coat check at Toronto nightclub The Diamond, while Tim Welch was the lighting technician there.
at Then And Now: The Diamond Club They began playing the local Toronto circuit, they used the money they made to record a 4-track demo. They shopped the demos around to record labels, but grew impatient. Six months after forming, they released a self-titled independent Extended play, EP, which they sold at their shows. Their EP caught the attention of Capitol Records President, Dean Cameron. He was impressed and signed them to Capital affiliate Intrepid Records in 1987. Original members, Sinclair, Gzowski and Reis had left the band prior to the Capitol deal and Gary Flint was added. Their self-titled debut album was released in 1988, and spawned the radio single "Flesh Under Skin". In 1989, their single and video for "68 Hours" garnered them a

CASBY Award The CASBY Awards were a Canadian awards ceremony for independent and alternative music, presented annually by Toronto, Ontario radio station CFNY, currently branded as 102.1 The Edge. CASBY is an acronym for Canadian Artists Selected By You. The a ...

. "Pacifist At Risk" and "Change My Mind" were also released as singles but failed to make the charts. Their follow-up album, ''Courage'' was recorded in England with producer

Zeus B. Held Zeus B. Held is a German music producer and musician, known for his work in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. He was involved with several artists of the krautrock, disco, and new wave era, such as Birth Control, Rockets, Gina X Performance, Dead Or ...

, and was released in 1990."National Velvet". ''

Calgary Herald The ''Calgary Herald'' is a daily newspaper published in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Publication began in 1883 as ''The Calgary Herald, Mining and Ranche Advocate, and General Advertiser''. It is owned by the Postmedia Network. History ''The ...

'', April 19, 1990. Guitarist Tim Welch (formerly of

Images In Vogue Images in Vogue is a Canadian new wave group formed in 1981 in Vancouver. It originally consisted of vocalist Dale Martindale, guitarist Don Gordon (later of Numb), synth players Joe Vizvary and Glen Nelson, bassist Gary Smith, and percussioni ...

) was added as a full time band member. The album was supported by a cross-Canada tour, and gave the band further radio airplay for the singles "Shine On" and "Sex Gorilla". (The latter title was a band in-joke. The song had actually been written as "Sarsparilla", but the fans kept misunderstanding the lyrics, so the band relented and retitled the song.) "Sex Gorilla" also led to a fan tradition of throwing

banana A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus ''Musa''. In some countries, bananas used for cooking may be called "plantains", distinguis ...

s at the stage during their shows. Sex Gorilla and Shine On were played in heavy rotation on Much Music and MTV. Courage was certified gold. A third single, "A Place Called Hysteria" was released off the album but received little push from the record label. The band continued to tour for the next few years, mainly in smaller clubs around Ontario, Canada. The band subsequently left Capitol Records, and released their third and final album ''Wildseed'' in 1995 on the independent label Iron Music. The album was recorded at eNVy Studio and produced by Gary Flint. Guitarist Darrell Flint was added, replacing Mark Storm. The album received little attention and almost no airplay. In 1996, Maria Del Mar joined the all female band Hassenpfeffer and recorded an album 'Songs of Convenience' (MaGaDa International). Despite frequent confusion, Del Mar is not the same person as television actress Maria del Mar. To further confusion, Maria Del Mar (singer) has done some acting, including the 1991 Toronto indie film ''

The Events Leading Up to My Death ''The Events Leading Up to My Death'' is a Canadian comedy film, released in 1991.Gerald Pratley, ''A Century of Canadian Cinema''. Lynx Images, 2003. . p. 71. Written and directed by Bill Robertson, the film revolves around the dysfunctional Snac ...

'', directed by Bill Robertson. Maria continued to work in the Toronto music scene into the early 2000's, including gigs with

Classic Albums Live Classic Albums Live is a concert series based in Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, in which musicians perform a classic Rock and roll, rock album in its entirety. The series was founded in 2003 by Craig Martin, a musician who had previously produced a s ...

and with the

Rolling Stones The Rolling Stones are an English Rock music, rock band formed in London in 1962. Active for six decades, they are one of the most popular and enduring bands of the album era, rock era. In the early 1960s, the Rolling Stones pioneered the g ...

tribute band Midnight Ramblers. Storm was reported missing in November 2002. The following June, his body was found in

Lake Ontario Lake Ontario is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded on the north, west, and southwest by the Canadian province of Ontario, and on the south and east by the U.S. state of New York. The Canada–United States border sp ...

. The band got together in 2003 for a benefit concert to help Mark's family during the difficult time. The band has performed periodically, including shows at Toronto's

Bovine Sex Club The Bovine Sex Club is a bar on Toronto's Queen Street West strip. In operation since January 1991, the Bovine Sex Club (often shortened to 'the Bovine') has at various times found itself at the forefront of Toronto's rock, punk, alternative, a ...

in 2011 and 2012, and continue to perform at select venues."The top 10 Toronto goth bands of all time"
''BlogTO'', October 25, 2014.

Discography

*''National Velvet'' (EP, 1986) *''National Velvet'' (1988) *''Courage'' (1990) *''Wildseed'' (1995)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:National Velvet (Band) Musical groups established in 1986 Musical groups disestablished in 1995 Canadian gothic rock groups Musical groups from Toronto Musical groups reestablished in 2011 1986 establishments in Ontario 1995 disestablishments in Ontario 2011 establishments in Ontario Canadian hard rock musical groups

Discography

See also

References